VATICAN CITY (CNS) – More than half a million young people from 146 countries are set to arrive July 28 for the start of the weeklong Jubilee of Youth, which will include a special Jubilee dedicated to Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers. While 68% of attendees will be from Europe, young people will be coming from four other continents and from war zones and areas of serious conflict, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, a pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, said July 23. “Essentially, this moment of celebration and joy also aims to embrace all young people around the world, indicating that it will be a genuine moment of peace and peace-building in the world,” he said at a Vatican news conference. “I am thinking in particular of the Christian young people of Ukraine, the Middle East, Syria, Gaza and Iran,” said Lamberto Giannini, Rome’s prefect, who coordinates maintaining law and order in the city. The seven-day event during the Jubilee of hope will be “in communion with all of them, because it is for them above all that hope is offered today, and not just any hope, but as we have been taught, the hope that does not disappoint,” he said. The high points will be walking through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Aug. 2 evening prayer vigil and Aug. 3 Mass with Pope Leo XIV in Rome’s Tor Vergata residential neighborhood. The week will also feature about 70 cultural, artistic and spiritual events – organized by multiple bishops’ conferences and Catholic groups and associations – throughout the city, including the exposition of the relics of Blesseds Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis for veneration.

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